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But the usually squeaky-clean actress and mom of three is owning up to her disorderly conduct arrest last month, telling "Good Morning America" Thursday she and husband Jim Toth (who was arrested on suspicion of DUI) "made a mistake and it was something that will absolutely never happen again."

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"It's just completely unacceptable and we are so sorry and embarrassed," the 37-year-old "Mud" star said.

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"We went out to dinner in Atlanta and we had one too many glasses of wine," she explained. "We thought we were fine to drive and we absolutely were not...We know better and we shouldn't have done that."

"I saw [the police officer] arresting my husband and I literally panicked" she went on. "I told him I was pregnant. I'm not pregnant. I said all kinds of crazy things."

"I was so disrespectful to him," she lamented. "I have police officers in my family. I work with police officers every day. I know better. It's just unacceptable."

Witherspoon said telling her kids Ava, 13, Deacon, 9, and Tennessee, 8 months, was particularly difficult. "We have to say when you make a mistake, you take responsibility and we are taking responsibility and doing everything in our power to make it right," she said.

We all remember the Oscar winner playing Harvard educated lawyer Elle Woods in the "Legally Blonde" movies, and the role clearly had an impact on Witherspoon, too. "I played a lawyer in a movie so many times I think I am a lawyer," she said. "And, clearly, I'm not a lawyer because I got arrested."

"When a police officer tells you to stay in the car, you stay in the car," she added. "I learned that for sure."